Last night, as I was driving home, I heard the news of three sisters killed in a farm accident in Alberta. They were playing in a truck as it was being filled with canola. Somehow they were overcome and buried in the grain. Such a tragedy.
I grew up on a farm and I can remember, as a girl, playing in the granary as it was being filled with the new crop. It is a natural ‘kid kind of thing’ to do. According to the news reports, the farm family had four children, the three girls and a younger boy. I can only imagine the grief that has overwhelmed them, their extended family and the community at large. I know that farm families across the land will be holding their kids extra tight today.
It has left me reflecting on grief, sudden-grief, and the toll it takes. I can only imagine the profound and devastating sorrow that lives with that family now. No one prepares for such a loss. Even when one has time to prepare for the death of a loved one, due to a long and lingering illness, the grief can be overwhelming. We are told that our bodies go into a state of shock to physically protect us and give us time to adjust to the news and the emotional turmoil that results.
According to the news, the family in Alberta is surrounded by a caring community who have all rallied to help in any way they can. Nonetheless, nothing will take away their devastating loss and no amount of neighbourly care will erase the grief. They will just have to see it through as painful as it is.
When I think of grief and the pain it causes I often re-read a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through. That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bond between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; he does not fill it, but on the contrary, he keeps it empty and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.”
May that Alberta family, and all families facing grief today, know God’s presence in some measure.
